What would you do on a rooftop in New York City? Get a tan? Watch fireworks on the 4th of July? Have a beer with friends? Keely, a young female farmer from South Dakota, discovered that New York City’s rooftops are great places to grow the best hops for beer making, along with other organic greens, and also to create community around urban organic farming...

iSchool Zambia is a social enterprise working to change the education system in Zambia. The company has copied the entire Zambian primary school curriculum (in English and the 7 local languages) on Android tablets they...Continue Reading >>

Farmers are awesome, aren’t they? We certainly think so! That’s why we held a Flash Fund from Sept 8-12 to help fund 500 farmers’ Kiva loans. Kiva farmers come from all over the world but are united in their passion for cultivating opportunity from hard work.

Thanks to Kiva lenders rallying to show their support, we smashed tour goal and more than 1150 farmers’ loans were funded during Flash Fund week!

Among the 1150 were young farmers, like Sibonisiwe in Zimbabwe, who owns a...

As the leaves change color, the air cools and farmers everywhere begin to gather their harvest, you know autumn has arrived in the U.S. In every culture, harvest season is regarded as a time of bounty and prosperity and is celebrated through holidays and festivals. This week, Kiva is celebrating farmers and all the hard work they do around the world by flash funding 500 farmers in 5 days! Join the effort by making a loan to a farmer.

One of the reasons farmers need our support is that their livelihoods are so unpredictable. Once the seeds are...

Who are they?
ASA Initiative is an MFI that provides loans for green energy and agriculture. They give green loans to entrepreneurs to sell clean energy cook stoves that run on waste materials produced by communities. Agricultural loans support citrus farmers in Ghana to expand their farms, hire labor, transport goods to the market, and ultimately increase their household income.

A bit about Myanmar…
Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in Asia, but it has seen major political and economic reforms in recent years that have many hopeful for a brighter future. For decades Myanmar was controlled by authoritative leadership that committed gross human rights violations. Myanmar’s people have lived through much oppression, but progress in this young democracy is being made to ensure human rights and develop transparency in governance. The next test of this will...

Nuru is a Kiswahili word meaning light and -- started in the West Kuria district of Kenya -- Nuru International (Nuru) is living up to its name, shining a little light on some of the most underserved and remote rural areas of East Africa. Under The Nuru Model, communities have access to agricultural input loans, alongside education, healthcare and leadership resources. As it expands its reach further into East Africa, Nuru aims to end extreme poverty in remote areas -- within our lifetime.

With Halloween behind us and harvest season coming to an end, the dormant months begin for many agricultural workers around the world. After planting, sowing and nurturing their crop, farmers see the harvest months as a measure of their productivity -- and hopefully -- a time of prosperity.

For those of us who aren’t directly involved in agriculture, fall is often seen as a time for celebration with family, although many of those celebrations are in fact tied to the harvest season. For example, Rome’s holiday, Cerelia, celebrates...

When asked to point to Suriname on a map, many people would be hard pressed to find it. The small country located at the top of South America is home to just over half a million people -- smaller than the population of San Francisco. And its economy is almost entirely dependent on the mining of bauxite -- a main source of aluminum. Only about 25% of the population is engaged in agricultural activities, and the economic disparity between rural and urban regions is distinct.

Given all these conditions, many farmers in Suriname find themselves scraping by at the subsistence level.... Continue Reading >>

Kiva loves supporting youth empowerment. Providing young people with training and support to pursue their dreams is a major part of our mission, which is why we’re so thrilled to bring PENYA aboard.

With high youth illiteracy rates and insufficient formal employment opportunities, Zimbabwe is one of the toughest places for youth to thrive. Ten years of economic recession from 1998 to 2008, governmental land reform... Continue Reading >>

Kiva is thrilled to welcome Advans Côte d'Ivoire as our newest field partner!

Known as Advans CI, the organization is the fifth microfinance institution established by Advans SA, a multi-national microfinance group already working in Cameroon, Ghana, Pakistan, Cambodia, and more places.

Advans CI, founded in March 2012, is on a mission to provide credit and savings products -- in addition to other financial services -- to micro, small and medium enterprises in Côte d'Ivoire. After just one year, it's served over 3,000... Continue Reading >>

This is a guest post by Emily Stone, the managing director at Kiva partner Maya Mountain Cacao in Belize. MMC supports cacao growers in the country to improve their livelihoods and get their high-quality product to market.

Here at Kiva, we’re all about deliberate and sustainable change. In order to make a true difference in lives and communities all over the world, we need to make sure people have the tools to lift themselves out of poverty. And every day, thousands of Kiva lenders help make this possible by lending small amounts of money to support businesses, education, and more.

This is one facet of a new U.S. movement coined “Slow Money.” As the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits an all time high, and more and more people struggle to find work and equitable pay, it’s...Continue Reading >>

Kiva is now in Nigeria! And we are extremely excited to work in this country again with our brand new partner, Babban Gona.

One of the most populous countries in West Africa, it was named after the Niger River which runs through the country. Although playing a vital role in Africa’s economy, Nigeria has a high poverty rate of about 70% and an unemployment rate of over 23%. The number of unbanked people in the country is one of the highest in Africa, and access to banking services is particularly limited in rural areas.

We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment!

In Uganda, as is the case in many African countries, women face a wide range of challenges including discrimination, low socioeconomic status and often violation of basic rights. Discrimination reduces their chances of becoming educated and economically self reliant. Moreover, women often become reliant on abusive men at home.

The same situation is seen among young women -- they become exposed to sex at an early age either for economic survival or for other reasons, and... Continue Reading >>

While the majority of microfinance models provide short-term credit with a two-year turnaround or less, there is a significant need for long-term finance in the marketplace. Long-term loans of 3 to 15 years, for example, are especially critical when borrowers are looking to finance educational expenses or agricultural investments.

The very nature of education is long-term, whereas agriculture can involve both short- and long-term loans. Longer-term agricultural investments include microforestry, organic conversion and field renewal, to name just a few.

What would you do on a rooftop in New York City? Get a tan? Watch fireworks on the 4th of July? Have a beer with friends? Keely, a young female farmer from South Dakota, discovered that New York City’s rooftops are great places to grow the best hops for beer making, along with other organic greens, and also to create community around urban organic farming...

iSchool Zambia is a social enterprise working to change the education system in Zambia. The company has copied the entire Zambian primary school curriculum (in English and the 7 local languages) on Android tablets they...Continue Reading >>

Farmers are awesome, aren’t they? We certainly think so! That’s why we held a Flash Fund from Sept 8-12 to help fund 500 farmers’ Kiva loans. Kiva farmers come from all over the world but are united in their passion for cultivating opportunity from hard work.

Thanks to Kiva lenders rallying to show their support, we smashed tour goal and more than 1150 farmers’ loans were funded during Flash Fund week!

Among the 1150 were young farmers, like Sibonisiwe in Zimbabwe, who owns a...

As the leaves change color, the air cools and farmers everywhere begin to gather their harvest, you know autumn has arrived in the U.S. In every culture, harvest season is regarded as a time of bounty and prosperity and is celebrated through holidays and festivals. This week, Kiva is celebrating farmers and all the hard work they do around the world by flash funding 500 farmers in 5 days! Join the effort by making a loan to a farmer.

One of the reasons farmers need our support is that their livelihoods are so unpredictable. Once the seeds are...

Who are they?
ASA Initiative is an MFI that provides loans for green energy and agriculture. They give green loans to entrepreneurs to sell clean energy cook stoves that run on waste materials produced by communities. Agricultural loans support citrus farmers in Ghana to expand their farms, hire labor, transport goods to the market, and ultimately increase their household income.

A bit about Myanmar…
Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in Asia, but it has seen major political and economic reforms in recent years that have many hopeful for a brighter future. For decades Myanmar was controlled by authoritative leadership that committed gross human rights violations. Myanmar’s people have lived through much oppression, but progress in this young democracy is being made to ensure human rights and develop transparency in governance. The next test of this will...

Nuru is a Kiswahili word meaning light and -- started in the West Kuria district of Kenya -- Nuru International (Nuru) is living up to its name, shining a little light on some of the most underserved and remote rural areas of East Africa. Under The Nuru Model, communities have access to agricultural input loans, alongside education, healthcare and leadership resources. As it expands its reach further into East Africa, Nuru aims to end extreme poverty in remote areas -- within our lifetime.

With Halloween behind us and harvest season coming to an end, the dormant months begin for many agricultural workers around the world. After planting, sowing and nurturing their crop, farmers see the harvest months as a measure of their productivity -- and hopefully -- a time of prosperity.

For those of us who aren’t directly involved in agriculture, fall is often seen as a time for celebration with family, although many of those celebrations are in fact tied to the harvest season. For example, Rome’s holiday, Cerelia, celebrates...

When asked to point to Suriname on a map, many people would be hard pressed to find it. The small country located at the top of South America is home to just over half a million people -- smaller than the population of San Francisco. And its economy is almost entirely dependent on the mining of bauxite -- a main source of aluminum. Only about 25% of the population is engaged in agricultural activities, and the economic disparity between rural and urban regions is distinct.

Given all these conditions, many farmers in Suriname find themselves scraping by at the subsistence level.... Continue Reading >>

Kiva loves supporting youth empowerment. Providing young people with training and support to pursue their dreams is a major part of our mission, which is why we’re so thrilled to bring PENYA aboard.

With high youth illiteracy rates and insufficient formal employment opportunities, Zimbabwe is one of the toughest places for youth to thrive. Ten years of economic recession from 1998 to 2008, governmental land reform... Continue Reading >>

Kiva is thrilled to welcome Advans Côte d'Ivoire as our newest field partner!

Known as Advans CI, the organization is the fifth microfinance institution established by Advans SA, a multi-national microfinance group already working in Cameroon, Ghana, Pakistan, Cambodia, and more places.

Advans CI, founded in March 2012, is on a mission to provide credit and savings products -- in addition to other financial services -- to micro, small and medium enterprises in Côte d'Ivoire. After just one year, it's served over 3,000... Continue Reading >>

This is a guest post by Emily Stone, the managing director at Kiva partner Maya Mountain Cacao in Belize. MMC supports cacao growers in the country to improve their livelihoods and get their high-quality product to market.

Here at Kiva, we’re all about deliberate and sustainable change. In order to make a true difference in lives and communities all over the world, we need to make sure people have the tools to lift themselves out of poverty. And every day, thousands of Kiva lenders help make this possible by lending small amounts of money to support businesses, education, and more.

This is one facet of a new U.S. movement coined “Slow Money.” As the Dow Jones Industrial Average hits an all time high, and more and more people struggle to find work and equitable pay, it’s...Continue Reading >>

Kiva is now in Nigeria! And we are extremely excited to work in this country again with our brand new partner, Babban Gona.

One of the most populous countries in West Africa, it was named after the Niger River which runs through the country. Although playing a vital role in Africa’s economy, Nigeria has a high poverty rate of about 70% and an unemployment rate of over 23%. The number of unbanked people in the country is one of the highest in Africa, and access to banking services is particularly limited in rural areas.

We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment!

In Uganda, as is the case in many African countries, women face a wide range of challenges including discrimination, low socioeconomic status and often violation of basic rights. Discrimination reduces their chances of becoming educated and economically self reliant. Moreover, women often become reliant on abusive men at home.

The same situation is seen among young women -- they become exposed to sex at an early age either for economic survival or for other reasons, and... Continue Reading >>

While the majority of microfinance models provide short-term credit with a two-year turnaround or less, there is a significant need for long-term finance in the marketplace. Long-term loans of 3 to 15 years, for example, are especially critical when borrowers are looking to finance educational expenses or agricultural investments.

The very nature of education is long-term, whereas agriculture can involve both short- and long-term loans. Longer-term agricultural investments include microforestry, organic conversion and field renewal, to name just a few.

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Kiva connects millions of people through lending to alleviate poverty. Read about our partners, programs and loans here. Or check out stories straight from the field on the Kiva Fellows Blog. Have questions? Send them our way at blog@kiva.org.